Send and return stationery



Oct. 16, 1962 J. H. ALEXANDER SEND AND RETURN STATIONERY Filed Sept. 15,1960 I INVENTOR John l'lfilexancler ATTORNEYS United States Patent3,058,648 SEND AND RETURN STATIONERY John H. Alexander, P.0. Box 2082,Daytona Beach, Fla. Filed Sept. 15, 1960, Ser. No. 56,288 1 Claim. (Cl.229-73) The present invention relates to send and return stationery, andmore particularly to such stationery in which an envelope and a paneledsheet are assembled with the sheet being partially inserted into theenvelope and partially wrapping the envelope.

In certain areas of commerce, it is highly desirable that a returnaddress envelope be sent to a person in order to facilitate a desiredaction by the addressee. In particular, in the field of collections, acollecting organization may be made up of one or many persons, and eachperson in the billing department of the organization has a large numberof accounts. In a typical situation, these accounts are debtors, and sothey must be advised of their debt, and payment requested. In the past,the collection of outstanding debts has been a costly operation, and itis a constant problem to keep the cost of debt collection to a minimum.

Perhaps the simplest form of debt collecting consists in providing aletter, either type written or a massproduced form letter, in addressingan envelope to the debtor, and then inserting the letter into theenvelope, sealing the envelope and stamping it. A more advancedtechnique of debt collection, however, recognizes the desirability ofproviding the debtor with an envelope which is addressed to the sender,or collecting agency or billing department, so that the debtor is morestrongly prompted to immediately enclose a remittance in this envelopeand deposit it in the mails.

Those send and return envelopes and/or stationery which have heretoforebeen provided, while being generally helpful, have not been aseconomical to produce and use as is desirable, nor have they been assecure as they should be. Thus, such stationery has been provided inwhich several envelopes have been used, one within the other, and thushave been relatively costly. Other suggestions for such stationery haveutilized multiple sheets or multiple panels, requiring complex andunusual sheets, or envelopes, or sheet-envelope combinations, to the endthat the cost was unnecessarily high.

Still other suggestions have been made for the wrapping of an envelopewithin a mailing sheet, but this construction failed to hold theenvelope securely and so it permitted the return envelope to becomeseparated from the mailing sheet during its travel from the mailingdepartment, through the postal system, to the debtor-addressee. Uponarrival, only the mailing sheet was received by the debtor, and so theadvantage of a return envelope was completely lost, since the returnenvelope was not presented to the debtor-addressee.

An object of the present invention is to provide send and returnstationery that will be extremely economical in initial costs.

Another object of the present invention is the provision of send andreturn stationery which may be prepared for mailing in an economicalmanner.

Yet another object of the present invention is to provide send andreturn stationery in which a return envelope will be securely heldduring initial transit from the sender to the initial addressee.

Yet another object of the present invention is the provision of send andreturn stationery of extremely low production and assembly costs andwhich provides for security of assembly of the parts of the stationery.

Other objects and many of the attendant advantages of the presentinvention will be understood from a consideration of the followingspecification and drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an envelope forming a part of thepresent invention.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view taken on line 2--2 of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a view of the back of the envelope of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a sheet forming a part of the stationeryof the present invention.

7 FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view showing the initial stage of theassembly of the sheet and envelope of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view showing the final assemblage of thesheet and envelope of the present invention.

Referring now to the drawings, where in like or corresponding parts aredesignated by a like or corresponding reference numeral throughout theseveral views, there is shown in FIG. 1 an envelope generally designated10 having a front wall 11 and an integral flap 12. Flap 12 has a coating13 of glue or adhesive near the outer edge thereof.

As may be seen in FIG. 2, the envelope'10 has a rear wall 14 which isconnected with the front wall 11 at the bottom thereof. In FIG. 3, theenvelope 10 may be seen to have, forming the rear wall 14 thereof, aflap 16 which is integral with the bottom of front wall 11 and sideflaps 17 and 18 which are integral with the sides of front wall 11. Thebottom flap 16 has an upward extent less then that of front wall 11, andthe side flaps 17 and 18 have downward sloping upper edges 17' and 18',there being provided a gap or indentation in the upper central part ofrear wall 14, and as is clearly shown in FIG. 3 the rear face of frontwall 11 may be seen through this gap or indentation.

The envelope 10 is a return envelope, and thus has on the front facethereon, as may be seen in FIG. 1, the address of the initial sender ofthe envelope, which in the example above referred to, would be thecollection agency or billing department.

Referring now to FIG. 4, there may be seen a sheet 20 comprising thepanels 21, 22 and 23, panels 21 and 22 being separated by a fold line 24and panels 22 and 23 being separated by a fold line 26. The panel 21 isa message panel, and will have thereon any desired writing to be read bythe addressee.

The name and address of the addressee are placed on panel 22 in theusual fashion for addressing an envelope, and as will appearhereinafter, this panel 22 will carry the stationery to the addressee.

On the reverse side of panel 23, at the upper end thereof and in thecentral portion thereof there is placed a small area 27 of glue oradhesive.

With the sheet 20 carrying the address and message and glue 27 as abovedescribed, and with the envelope 10 carrying the address of the sender,the panel 21 is inserted in the envelope in the manner shown in FIG. '5,it being noted that panel 21 is of approximately the same height asfront wall 11 of envelope 10 and that the fold line 24 lies just abovethe fold line joining flap 12 to front wall 11. It will also be notedthat flap 12 is in the position indicated in FIGS. 1, 2 and 3 in whichit is folded in a manner reverse to the normal folding of an envelopeflap. Subsequent to the insertion of panel 21 of sheet 20 in theenvelope 10, panel 22, carrying the address of the addressee will befolded down, about fold line 24, so that it overlies the flap 12 and thefront wall 11 of envelope 10. Since the height of panel 22 issubstantially the same as, or possibly a little greater than, the heightof front wall 11, fold line 26 will be below the junction between frontwall 11 and rear wall 14 of envelope 10. Thereafter, and as may be seenin FIG. 6,

panel 23 may be folded so that it lies adjacent the rear wall 14 ofenvelope 10, and the glue area 27 having been or now being moistened, itwill pass through the gap or indentation in the rear wall 14 and willsecure the panel 23 to the panel 21. This construction and configurationof the assembled, ready to mail stationery is shown in FIG. 6.

As will be understood, the message on panel 21 will be hidden from viewduring the transit of the stationery through the mails, and similarlythe front wall 11 of envelope 10 will be obscured from view, so thatthere need be no antagonism raised in the mind of the debtoraddressee byvirtue of the sender being indicated on the stationery before it isopened by the addressee. The stationery will be securely held togetherduring its transit through the mails, and there will be no danger thatthe parts of the stationery will become separated during transit throughthe mails, since the panel 21 is inserted within the envelope, and sincethe panel '21 and 23 are adhesively secured together by the glue area27, entering in the gap or indentation in the rear of the envelope.

In addition, by virtue of the present construction, the parts of thestationery herein disclosed will be extremely economical to produce, andtheir assemblage may be accomplished swiftly and with a minimumconsumption of time of the personnel involved in the preparation of thestationery for mailing.

It will be obvious to those skilled in the art that various changes maybe made without departing from the spirit of the invention and thereforethe invention is not limited to what is shown in the drawings anddescribed in the specification but only as indicated in the appendedclaims.

What is claimed is:

Send and return stationery comprising an envelope and a sheet, saidenvelope having a front wall having the senders address thereon, a rearwall in juxtaposition with said front wall and a continuous flapconnected to the upper margin of the front wall and lying beside saidfront wall, the central part of said rear wall extending upwardly fromthe bottom edge of the envelope a height of the front wall providing anindentation in the rear wall of the envelope, said sheet having a firstpanel having a message thereon and inserted into said envelope betweenthe front and rear walls thereof, a second panel of said sheet adjacentsaid first panel extending on the outer side of the front wall of saidenvelope, said second panel substantially covering the front wall of theenvelope and having the addressees address thereon, and a third panel ofsaid sheet adjacent said second panel extending on the outer side of therear wall thereof and of height substantially equal to the height of thesecond panel, and means securing the third panel to the first panelthrough the indentation in the envelope rear wall.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS157,487 Bomar Dec. 8, 1874 536,821 Southard Apr. 2, 1895 FOREIGN PATENTS3,476 Great Britain 1912

